SELWESKI: Are the Red States the real American moochers'?

As the November vote approaches, for many Americans this election is all about too many people dependent on the government. For others, it’s about government helping the struggling middle class.

Could they both be right?

After all, the tea party loyalists who fear that we’re becoming a “nanny state” nation certainly have some basic facts on their side. According to Census Bureau figures, the portion of America’s overall income derived from government has more than doubled over the past four decades. And programs for the middle class are growing so fast that they now exceed assistance to the poor.

At the same time, President Obama’s supporters point out that the 47 percent who don’t pay federal income taxes consist mostly of seniors, the disabled, veterans and the working poor. Those people, and many more, are hurting, and so their basic IRS deductions exempt them from paying any income taxes.

The big picture is revealing.

One largely overlooked dynamic in the 2012 presidential contest is that, amid all the talk about makers vs. takers and the 47 percent who are “moochers,” it is the Red States and specifically the rural areas of the United States that rely more upon government than the rest of the nation.

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If you look at a U.S. map that details the 2008 or 2004 presidential election results, county by county, it’s stunning how much of the nation’s geography is Republican red – virtually all of the rural and semi-rural areas. But research shows that it is those Red counties where government dependence is significantly higher than the Blue counties and, in particular, the Blue metropolitan areas.

The latest study to highlight these differences has been produced by Michigan Future Inc.

New data to be released later this month by Michigan Future shows that big metropolitan areas lead rural America in generating private sector employment earnings, while rural regions of the nation are more reliant upon government “transfer payments” and government employment for a large share of personal income.

The upcoming report uses data from the U.S. Department of Commerce to distinguish private employment earnings vs. earnings from public sector agencies. The public sector is defined as local, state and federal government, public schools, and public universities and colleges.

Transfer payments are defined as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, veterans’ benefits, tuition support like Pell grants and subsidies for college loans, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and farm subsidies.

Obviously, farm subsidies are a factor that exacerbates the differences in the urban vs. rural numbers.

The results show that heavily populated regions lead the nation in personal income as well as the share of that income coming from the private sector, rather than government jobs or government assistance.

For example, metropolitan areas with 3 million or more people (such as Metro Detroit) produce average annual earnings of about $45,000 per person. Overall, just 15 percent of all income consists of government payments.

In comparison, rural counties with a population of less than 200,000 experience earnings that are nearly $14,000 less per person, per year. And that populace collectively relies upon government checks for 27 percent of all income.

Several stereotypes are destroyed just by that one series of numbers.

“A myth has grown in our nation of the ‘self-reliant small rural region’ compared to the ‘government-reliant big metro,’” said Lou Glazer, co-author of the Michigan Future report. “This data suggests that is not true, and that the economies of small town America are reliant in a substantial way on dollars coming from governments, either through government jobs or transfer payments.”

Regardless of the geography, political conservatives are right to keep a vigilant eye on long-term trends that show a disturbing growth rate in government at all levels and in every corner of the country.

In Macomb County, our dependence on government aid in 1969 was well below the national average, at 3.8 percent of total income. That percentage doubled by 1979 and reached 11.4 percent of all income in 1999.

But it nearly doubled again over the next decade, reaching 20.3 percent in 2009, which was above the national average.

And yet again, the curious aspect to the national numbers is that conservative areas of the country receive more entitlements and government aid than the liberal sections.

In the 2008 presidential election, among the 100 counties with the highest dependence on federal aid, Republican John McCain won two-thirds of them. What the map shows is that the stereotypical link between inner city areas and government “handouts” is an exaggeration, at a minimum.

The solidly Red States of Kentucky, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi receive more income support, such as welfare and food stamps, than other sections of the U.S.

Numbers that date back to when Michigan was still struggling to fight off the nation’s Great Recession show that transfer payments accounted for about 28 percent of total personal income in Detroit, but in many rural counties up north, government assistance provided more than 40 percent of income.

The “talent factor” is a major driving force behind these disparities, with the proportion of college graduates in urban areas far outstripping those living in the countryside.